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Samuel Butler's Erewhon, or Over the Range was published anonymously 1872. In this satire of Victorian society, the main character Higgs discovers an unknown country, the seeming utopia called Erewhon, Nowhere backwards with the "h" and "w" transposed. The starting chapters detailing the discovery of Erewhon were based on Butler's experiences in New Zealand as a young man. Butler was possibly the first to write about the idea that machines might one day develop consciousness through the process of Darwinian Selection.
Setting out to make his fortune in a far-off country, a young traveller discovers the remote and beautiful land of Erewhon and is given a home among its extraordinarily handsome citizens. But their visitor soon discovers that this seemingly ideal community has its faults - here crime is treated indulgently as a malady to be cured, while illness, poverty and misfortune are cruelly punished, and all machines have been superstitiously destroyed after a bizarre prophecy. Can he survive in a world where morality is turned upside down? Inspired by Samuel Butler's years in colonial New Zealand and by his reading of Darwin's Origin of Species, Erewhon (1872) is a highly original, irreverent and humorous satire on conventional virtues, religious hypocrisy and the unthinking acceptance of beliefs. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
If the reader will excuse me, I will say nothing of my antecedents, nor of the circumstances which led me to leave my native country; the narrative would be tedious to him and painful to myself.
The author wishes it to be understood that Erewhon is pronounced as a word of three syllables, all short - thus, E-re-whon. (Preface to the First Edition)
My publisher wishes me to say a few words about the genesis of the work, a revised and enlarged edition of which he is herewith laying before the public. (Preface to the Revised Edition)
Having been enabled by the kindness of the public to get through an unusually large edition of Erewhon in a very short time, I have taken the opportunity of a second edition to make some necessary corrections, and to add a few passages where it struck me that they would be appropriately introduced; the passages are few, and it is my fixed intention never to touch the work again. (Preface to the Second Edition)
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Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
At the last moment I see a probability of a complication which causes me much uneasiness. Please subscribe quickly. Address to the Mansion-House, care of the Lord Mayor, whom I will instruct to receive names and subscriptions for me until I can organise a committee.
Nevertheless, though in literary workmanship I do not doubt that this last-named book is an improvement on the first, I shall be agreeably surprised if I am not told that Erewhon, with all its faults, is the better reading of the two. (Preface to the Revised Edition)
I must not conclude without expressing my most sincere thanks to my critics and to the public for the leniency and consideration with which they have treated my adventures. (Preface to the Second Edition)
Samuel Butler's Erewhon, or Over the Range was published anonymously 1872. In this satire of Victorian society, the main character Higgs discovers an unknown country, the seeming utopia called Erewhon, Nowhere backwards with the "h" and "w" transposed. The starting chapters detailing the discovery of Erewhon were based on Butler's experiences in New Zealand as a young man. Butler was possibly the first to write about the idea that machines might one day develop consciousness through the process of Darwinian Selection.
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